


One Good Scare

by DawnsEternalLight



Series: Halloween Content War 2018 [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Halloween hijinks, Haunted House, Spooky, booooo, the batfam goes through a haunted house, what more is there to say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-13 21:57:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16480508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnsEternalLight/pseuds/DawnsEternalLight
Summary: The batfam take a trip through a haunted house.





	One Good Scare

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Halloween Content War 2018 day 3: Spooky (or something like that)

“This is going to be stupid.” Jason said, prompting Dick to punch him in the arm. He didn’t punch him hard enough for it to be painful, but he made sure to put in enough force to tell him to shut up.

“What it’s going to be is incredible.” Dick told him, “Besides, no one told you that coffin racing was stupid.”

“Because coffin racing as a family event is amazing, haunted houses are so overdone.” Jason replied.

“It was stupid.” Damian said, “You pushed the irony too far, Todd.”

“You’re only mad because you came in last place.” Jason turned to ruffle Damian’s hair.

Dick watched as Damian ducked under the hand and pushed past Jason to stand closer to him. He didn’t quite get close enough to be using Dick as support. The move could be read as more of a ‘you’re irritating so I am leaving’ tactic.

“I lost because someone sabotaged me. And believe me when I find out who did--”

“You’ll unleash your wrath upon them, yeah, yeah we know.” Steph said, “Unless of course it’s Cass, to whom you’ll respectfully pretend you were never mad about it at all.”

Cass grinned at him, and Damian’s mouth snapped shut. Everyone was pretty sure it had been Cass, but Damian had told Dick he was holding out for it being Tim. So he could get proper revenge or something like that. Dick hadn’t bothered attempting to turn it into a teaching moment. Damian and Tim would figure out their relationship eventually.

“Guys, the line’s moving.” Tim said, prompting their attention.

They moved forward, inching closer and closer to the end where they’d be sent out into the haunted house itself. Well, haunted house wasn’t exactly true. It was more like haunted houses, or haunted areas? The attraction had multiple sections to it. A proper house, a haunted forest path, and the spook to end all spooks: the sanitarium. Wally hadn’t stopped talking about it for a week, so of course Dick had picked it as his choice of a family outing.

Since they’d be busy stopping Gotham’s craziest minds on Halloween proper Dick had suggested everyone celebrate earlier, in the form of family outings or events. Everyone picking one thing to do and everyone participating in that thing. Jason had done coffin racing, Damian had made them go through a haunted corn maze (run by the Kents, and surprisingly spooky). So far it had been a success, and Dick was already planning to suggest they do it again next year.

“West said that his group left him behind when he came here.” Damian said, eyeing the creepy old manor’s imposing front face.

Dick nodded, “It’s really scary inside, but if you want, Dames, I can hold your hand. That way we don’t lose you.”

“Tt. I am not a child, Grayson.” Damian eyed him. “However, I will hold your hand so you do not get lost. I fear what you might do if you take the wrong turn down a dark hall.”

“It’s a deal.” Dick said, taking Damian’s smaller hand in his own and wrapping their fingers together.

At last, they made it to the front of the line, and after some quick rules they were sent on their way towards the house. Jason stomped his way to the front of their group, with Dick and Damian behind him, followed by Tim, Duke, Cass, and Step. The girls elected to stay at the back to “Protect the boys from the big scary monsters.” Dick figured they’d spend half the time trying to scare Tim or Duke.

When they reached the door, Dick squeezed Damian’s hand, “I won’t leave you behind, even if it’s terribly spooky.” he promised.

Damian huffed, but squeezed his hand back.

They crowded the front entry to the house, unsure of where their path was going forward. There were a few doors, and a set of stairs. Then, from the corner of Dick’s eye, he saw something move.

He shrieked, jumping back, and dragging Damian in tow with him. His yell was followed by a quieter one from Duke, and Damian hissing, “Grayson, do not be a fool.” as he righted himself next to Dick.

The figure, was a man dressed as a vampire. “Velcome inside, if you vant to survive there are a few rules you must follow.” he said imitating a Dracula style accent.

Dick’s rapid heart slowed gradually as the man led them around the room and through a door explaining the rules. Always keep moving, don’t take pictures, and don’t touch _anything_. He could do that. Yeah. Totally.

It didn’t matter that Wally had refused to tell him what had gone on inside the house. Or that he’d only told him he’d been more afraid inside than he’d been that one time Captain Cold and Freeze had teamed up to take them on. They’d be fine. Dick could do this, he’d faced much more than some jump scares and people in costume...actually that was a lot of what he’d faced.

He reached forward and took Jason’s hand and grinned at him when he received a glare, “So we don’t get lost. The hallway looks narrow, and who knows what’s up ahead.”

Jason didn’t shake him off but his glare did turn into a menacing grin, “Scared, Dicky boy?”

“Leave that to the professionals.” Steph piped up.

“Let’s all hold hands.” Cass suggested.

Their line slowed, but didn’t stop (as per rule one) as everyone linked hands. Dick was surprised when Damian didn’t make a fuss over holding Tim’s hand. He glanced back to find his brother’s most serious expression on his face, determination? Boredom? Whatever the cause, he was happy there was no fighting in the house. It was scary enough without family turning on one another.

They pushed through the house proper, passing a creepy living room, a haunted piano that started playing on it’s own, and through another tight hallway. Behind him Dick heard playful chatter as Duke wondered if they were going the right way, and as Steph poked at Tim trying to rouse a scream un-prompted by an actor. Jason kept calling back to them spoilers of what he was seeing,

“One of those screaming paintings!”

“A tattered couch.”

“Up here there is a--Oh _crabsticks_ , you scared me.”

Dick jumped as the man who’s scared Jason moved close, his makeup done so his face was pale white, a butler’s costume hung tattered on his body. He followed Dick, almost pushing between him and Damian, breathing heavily down Dick’s neck and making his heart jump back into overdrive. He tried to scoot away, but real movement would mean letting go of his brother’s hand and he was not going to do that.

Finally the man left him as they turned into another hallway, a little wider than the last. It was darker in here. The creepy music flooding the building quieted into something teasing at Dick’s ears, tempting him to stop and catch the melody, stop and be lost, stop and be trapped by the house.

He was so intent on trying to hear it and keep moving that when the giant dog burst from the wall next to him, barking with feral intensity he screamed, jumping into the far wall before scrambling to move forward, tugging Damian and the rest of the group with him. Distantly he heard others yell. Maybe Cass and Duke?

They turned into a room filled with spikes. The lights flickered above them and Dick could feel everyone tighten into a straighter line, no one wanting to test the spikes to see how real they were. Spikes turned into things hanging from the ceiling, different weapons and various body parts.

Dick was so distracted looking around him that he ran right into a severed arm hanging in front of him, the appendage smacking him across the face and sending a bolt of confused terror through his chest.

“How do you like my hands?” a voice said, coming out of the shadows.

A little girl, maybe ten skipped over to them, playing with another severed arm, petting it like it was a bunny cradled in her arm, “Aren’t they just delightful?” she asked, giggling.

Dick’s grip on Damian’s hand tightened just a little more.

Spikes and hands turned into a dim room full of flickering lights and...large bags? Dick wasn’t sure he really wanted to get closer, not that he had a choice. They moved in, even Jason slowing a bit as they entered the room. Starting first in one direction, then seemingly moving in a different one, swearing and muttering about stupid haunted houses and stupid corpses.

Jason swore, a real, non-food related swear enunciating just how much he hated the room they were in.

They were bodies. Of course they were. Dummies, dressed and bagged and hung from the ceiling. Some weren’t even in bags, instead hanging from nooses dotted around the room. There were so many, and so tightly packed into the room that they had to physically push their way through them. Dicks stomach turned over inside him at moving through them. Even if they weren’t real, they were too close to thing’s Dick had seen before. Things Joker had done, and visions Scarecrow had given him.

He swallowed down bail and pushed forward, hoping to pull the others quickly through. 

They broke out into a wooded area, with ropes leading them forward. Dick could feel the group relax a little, some of the tension that had been building as they’d moved and screamed easing as they were out under the sky again. Jason’s grip on Dick’s hand loosened slightly as the man chuckled.

“Well that was fun. What do you think they have for us next?” Jason asked.

“Something with some solid ground, my shoes are already soaked.” Tim complained.

The ground was mushy. Soggy straw and mud squelched as they moved forward. Once crunchy leaves only stuck to shoes and squished as they were pressed deeper into the mud. The whole place felt like a waterlogged swamp, and smelled a bit like one too. The air was musty with mud and dying things. 

“Nasty mud.” Cass grumbled, making their group halt so she could yank her foot from a particularly deep bit of mud.

“I think it’s fun. Adds to the spook factor.” Steph said, “Plus, there’s a better chance of one of you being killed by the guy with the chainsaw.”

“Chainsaw?” Duke yelped, “No. No one said anything about a guy with a chainsaw.”

“They have them at all haunted houses, you can’t tell me that’s surprising.” Steph told him.

“Maybe there’s not one here.” Tim wondered.

They crested a small hill and a man rose up out of a coffin, prompting a chuckle from Jason and a clenching of Dick’s chest. The man ran over to Jason, stopping just short of actually touching him and hovered around him for a few steps before darting back behind Dick and Damian to tease first Duke and Tim, then the girls.

“What are you doing here?” his voice hissed, “Have you come to disturb the dead?”

Dick thought he was in the clear, but the zombie? Living dead? Guy, made his way back up to him and kept moving closer and closer to Dick, first pulling him away from Jason, then trying to separate him and Damian. Something in Dick broke and he yanked his brother up from the ground, into his arms and dragged him froward, tugging the rest of the group behind him in a fast almost jog to catch up to Jason, who’d entered a small barn.

Dick set Damian down and found Jason’s hand again before they made it out of the building.

“Man, you did not like him, did you?” Tim asked Dick.

“He set me on edge. They’re not supposed to touch you, and he was all over me.” Dick panted. “It’s fine, we’re past it.”

He'd thought for a moment that the man might grab Damian if he'd let him. Scoop his brother up and disappear with him off into the night, a horror more real than the false ones they'd paid to go through tonight. 

“And onto the next terror.” Jason said, his voice low and creepy.

They moved out of the barn and back into the woods, curving deeper into the trees. Dick could see a huge skeletal statue lit by blueish lights ahead of them. He was waiting for it to move or scream or something, but it stayed still as they moved forward.

Then a man darted out from the other side screaming, “You all here for my moonshine?! You can’t have my moonshine!”

Dick's heart leapt to his throat and he resisted jerking back away from the man. 

He skittered forward and back against their group, “Joe, see these here intruders? They’ve come for our moonshine!”

Joe stood by an old shack glaring at them, before he joined the racket, screaming about moonshine, and hitting the side of a metal barrel with a huge stick.

“Moonshine?” Cass wondered, “What’s moonshine?”

“Y’all don’t know what moonshine is? You must be lyin'.” the first man screeched, following them past the shack and further into the woods. “Y'all are nothing but trespassers.”

He sniffed at Jason before moving down to Dick, eyeing him, with one eye squished mostly closed, “You trespassen’?” he asked.

“No.” Dick squeaked, unsure of how actually to respond.

“Then what’re you doin’ here?” the man pushed.

“I’m just, following him.” Dick said raising his hand that was connected with Jason’s to point at Jason.

“You don’t have permission to be in my woods! This is my here path!” the man told him, jabbing a finger in Dick’s direction before finally, _finally,_ dropping back.

“What the hell, Dick?” Jason said, as they started towards another building, “You weren’t _trespassing?_ ”

“No.” Cass giggled, “Following you.”

“That’s still trespassing!” Jason said, his voice verging on laughter himself.

“He startled me!” Dick said, “What was I supposed to say, ‘Yes, I am. Please take me out back, and shoot me Mr. Moonshine Man.’?”

“That might have been just as funny.” Tim said.

Dick huffed, but didn’t respond again. The small house they were approaching had a group of people in in who looked like they might be another group going through the house before them.

“Are we waiting or something?” Tim asked.

The group moved through a door before they made it to the house, and a girl dressed in overalls with one strap loose waved them in, “Come on in y'all. Take a seat, take a seat. Nothing’s going to jump out at you in here.”

Dick didn’t quite believe her and stayed standing along with Jason and Damian. Cass and Steph took her up on the offer and broke from them, plopping onto the large couch at the back of the room.

“What’s in there?” Duke asked, pointing at the closed door.

Booming rock music came muffled from behind it, promising something wild.

“Oh there? They’re just getting dinner ready inside. Y’all hungry?”

Everyone but Cass shook their heads. The woman nodded at her, “It’s like that song, from that movie with the lions. Bah ba henya or something like that.”

Everyone blinked at her.

“You know what I mean, that movie.” she looked across the group, probably seeing mirroring expressions of deer in the headlights and shock.

“You know what I mean.” She said pointing at Cass, “Right?”

Tim screamed.

Dick spun on his heel and screamed too as he saw an imposing man approach them. There was a domino effect of people yelping, Jason, Duke, and Steph before they quieted down and the woman chuckled.

“That’s just Cletus.” she said, “He won’t do you no harm.”

Dick gulped.

“They ready for them?” she asked Cletus, before moving to the door to check herself, then nodding. “I hope you all are hungry.” she said, swinging it open for them to go through.

“I wonder what’s on the menu.” Jason said, stepping in.

The room was black. Then the lights were flashing, strobes of bright white making everything look like slow motion as they moved past strange things hanging from the ceiling and rock music blared in their ears, louder than even Bruce liked to play it in the cave when he thought no one else was down there. It was overwhelming and Dick was ready to be out of there.

The music stopped and things were quiet for exactly a second.

Then the chainsaw started up.

Dick screamed. He was pretty sure everyone screamed. They ran. Hands tight together. Ground squelching under their feet. Chainsaw behind them. They ran and ran and ran until they burst back into the forest their line more of a blob.

There was a yelp, and Tim stumbled and fell. The whole group stopped, the chainsaw noise gone from behind them as everyone panted and Duke helped Tim to his feet.

“Wow, Timmy. I never thought you’d be that horror victim.” Jason said, chuckling.

“Shut up, Jason.” Tim snapped.

Jason chuckled, “Let’s walk the rest of the way eh? That'll keep the rest of us from becoming slasher victims.”

“Are we done?” Steph asked.

“Probably not.” Dick said, “I don’t see where we came in.”

Steph groaned.

A minute later Jason huffed, “She was wrong.” he said, “Cletus is a dick.”

“Hey!” Dick said, slightly affronted.

“No, he’s right. Cletus _is_ a dick.” a woman said, stepping out from the woods.

Her face was pale. Hair strewn everywhere, and her lips. Dick didn’t want to look at them too long. They were red. And glistening.

“He tries to gnaw on me sometimes.” she said matter o’ factly.

“Yeah? That’s rough.” Dick said, breathy with discomfort as she moved close to him.

She hummed, “Yeah, I hate that guy. He took my lips.”

That was the red. Dick swallowed and tugged Damian a little closer. Maybe a haunted house hadn’t been such a good idea.

They shuffled their way to the front of another huge building just as a group of people was moving in and closed the door on them.

The last part of the tour dawned on Dick. “We haven’t done the Sanitarium yet.” he said, looking at the old fashioned ambulance parked out in front of the building.

“We haven’t?” Duke asked, “Come _on_.”

“They change the skits nightly, but Wally said this place was the most terrifying.” Dick said, “He wouldn’t say anything else about it.”

“That’s comforting.” Steph said.

They waited, shifting this way and that for a few minutes before at last the door opened and a woman in bloody nurse scrubs led them in. The door shut behind them with a boom as they stood awkwardly in the front room.

“Welcome to the sanitarium.” she said, “There’s some important things you need to know about us. Here we’re all crazy. Inpatients, outpatients, partial patients, and doctors. The doctors have tortured us into a frenzy of increased insanity and we all want out.”

Dick couldn’t help but think of that game Damian had insisted on playing the year before. Something else happening in in a hospital with insane patients and doctors. Dick had paid half his attention to it while Damian had played, preferring to tease his brother over being fooled into screaming at jump scares.

“Don’t be surprised if we want to take your hands or some skin or your hair.” she added with a giggle, leading them into the sanitarium.

Behind him he heard Tim repeating,”Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.”

They moved down another hallway whose walls were covered in prosthetic limbs, crutches, and a variety of various walkers and canes. It was unnerving in the idea that all these might have been peoples at once.

The room the hall led into was eerily quiet, with a large couch where a young woman sat watching static on the tv. They tiptoed their way through it, but the girls head turned to them all the same. Then she was standing on the couch. And flew towards the wall, almost climbing on it like a spider. She hissed at them as they hurried past. This next shorter hallway had a wiry bed that was more spring than padding, creaking at them. From a window to the side, they could see the group in front of them moving through a surgical room. It was all too soon their turn to go into it, a screaming woman dressed as a doctor jumping out at them, and asking who wanted to be worked on first.

“You?” she asked Jason.

“You?” she popped over to Dick.

“What about you little one?” she asked Damian, “It’s been so long since we’ve had a boy here.”

The moved quickly straight into a dark room. Not just dark, black. Pitch black with nowhere to see. Dick could normally see a little in shadows, but they’d been in dim and flashing lights for so long that evening that the absence of light, and probably the decorations in the room, made it hard to see anything.

They bumped up against each other, gripping arms and shoulders, hands tightening as a jumble of “Where are we?” “What do we do?” “Are we supposed to be in here” flooded his ears. Dick was afraid they might just stay there forever. Trapped in a dark maze of confusion.

Finally Jason tugged them, “There, a light!”

Another hallway, this one partially lit with odd shapes jutting from the walls. When they were halfway down it electricity crackled, sparking to life. Dick screamed like he’d been the one shocked, and with every successive burst of electricity others screamed, shocked or terrified, or a combination.

They hurried into another room that looked prepped for surgery, a body laid out on a gurney, it’s stomach cut open with guts spilling out. Dick knew it had to be fake, but that didn’t stop his mind from conjuring a real person, and how they might end up that way.

There was a male doctor this time. Stalking them and carrying some kind of large surgical pincers? Dick wasn’t sure what was real and what was just there to spook them now. The man held out a hand.

“Slow down.” he said, standing to block their path forward.

He stared them down for a few moments, those darn pincers click clacking with sinister intent until he at last nodded and waved them onward. Dick didn’t have time to really think about the strange exchange as he laughed behind them, “Head down the hall, and mind the doors.”

The doors?

Then Dick saw them, the hallway was lined with white doors, each one across from another one. His mind said, _“They’re going to close! Slam shut and trap us here!”_ and he wanted to run, but Jason was still moving carefully forward.

Then the chainsaw started and Dick screamed, dropping everyone's hands and bolting forward, past Jason, who’d started to run. He screamed blindly down the hallway running and running until he was past the doors and out into the night again, on long after the chainsaw sound had stopped.

Finally he stopped, hands dropping to his thighs as he sucked in air, more from the fear and less because he was actually winded. He looked up to see a man in a hockey mask slowing to a stop behind him. He held Damian looped under one arm, Damian’s hand still gripped onto Tim’s as the rest of the group followed them, Jason now taking up the rear.

Dick and the masked man looked at each other for a second before the man set Damian down and gave a small bow. He then turned and jogged back down the hallway they’d come down, crouching to pick up his chainsaw on the way back.

Dick blinked at the group. Jason burst into laughter, followed by everyone but Damian.

“We survived!” Steph cheered.

Jason stepped over to Dick and threw an arm around his shoulders, “And now we know who’s the one who’d up and leave us if we were in a horror movie.”

Dick blushed and brushed off the arm, “As if you all weren’t ready to run at the second sound of the chainsaw.”

“Oh we were, but we stayed in a group.” Jason said.

“You should have seen the way that guy lifted Damian like a sack of potatoes so we could all follow you.” Duke said, chuckling, “If only I could have filmed that.”

“The most portable Robin.” Tim teased.

“And how was that, Dames?” Dick said turning his attention to Damian.

His brother’s face was white, hands fists at his sides, his posture as tense as it had been when they went in. Damian’s eyes found Dick and at last he spoke, “You _leFT_  me.” he croaked, voice tinged with leftover terror as left broke.

“Crap, Damian. I’m sorry.” Dick said, dropping to a knee. He realized then that Damian hadn’t said a word the entire time they’d been inside after his initial rebuke of Dick's fear. Maybe the kid had been more terrified than he'd let on. 

“You promised you wouldn’t leave me.” Damian said, his voice still somewhat shocked.

Dick took his hands, “What can I do to make it up?”

“Games for a month!” Tim said.

“Move back into the manor.” Jason suggested.

“Candy.” Cass said.

“No give him ice cream.” Steph told him.

“Maybe take him to batburger?” Duke wondered.

“Damian?” Dick asked again, tuning out his family as they started to pile on more suggestions.

“Cocoa.” Damian said, “And a movie. And you will stay by my side the rest of the evening.”

His voice gained more authority as he made his demands, and Dick grinned. He stood, then scooped Damian up and deposited him on his back, “Deal.” he said, “Let’s all head home, I think that was enough spooky for the night.”


End file.
